


break of a new dawn

by Shattering_Colors



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: (insert utopia image) the world if riz hawkwood canonically had autism, Autistic Character, Gen, OCD, Temporary Character Death, if only riz was canonically autistic, it's just mentioned though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29348685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shattering_Colors/pseuds/Shattering_Colors
Summary: Riz wakes up the morning after Tart dies with neither of her eyebrows. There is, indeed, a correlation.OR: Riz has trich.
Relationships: Riz Hawkwood & Melissa de Vignolles
Kudos: 1





	break of a new dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Fuck canon, give me more Melissa and Riz friendship.

Tart's still fast asleep when dawn breaks and Riz is still sitting in front of the fire in the exact same position she had been for the past seven hours.

She watches as the sun raises from behind the fringes of leaves of the tallest trees, painting the sky in a beautiful mirage of colors.

"Good morning, Riz," someone very familiar, someone Riz is quite glad to have alive and with her, calls out behind her. Riz turns with a widening of her eyes that would usually be accompanied by a sliver of a smile. It's been a day and the eye thing is really all she can do.

"Morning," she murmurs, not wanting to disrupt the ambiance of the sunrise.

"Riz?" There's a vast amount of concern to the words that come from Melissa's mouth upon seeing Riz slouched over the previous night's dying fire, but it's no where near her agonized wails over her father and Tart from the day before. "What happened to your eyebrows?"

Hesitantly, Riz reaches her fingers up - she'd like to know, too - to her eyebrows. Or, rather, to where her eyebrows should be.

Soft, irritated flesh greets the calloused tips of her fingers and Riz jerks her hand away as though she had tried to grab the fire in front of her. "They're gone," she states intelligently, tracing the wisps of embers with her eyes.

"I," Melissa sputters, sitting down on the ground next to Riz as not to fall over, "I noticed that. Did something happen? With Corbeau?"

A lot happened with Corbeau, as it always did. Restraining her and making Riz watch as she murdered her best friend - who took the hit for Melissa and her unconscious father, but that's not at all better - really counted as 'something' in Riz's book. This is not a result of the mass-murdering, utterly unhinged bird-motifed woman, though.

"Oh," comes Riz's delayed epiphany, "I pulled them all out."

Melissa blinks rapidly before going, "what?!" It's a rational response on all accounts, save for the fact that Riz doesn't remember doing it. She's ninety percent sure that she did it, though.

There wasn't anyone else who was close enough that could have done it, save for Tart and Melissa. Naturally, Riz considered it safe to assume that neither of them would spend the night after an extremely traumatizing and draining day plucking out Riz's eyebrow hairs like flower petals off of a ripe rose.

"I do that sometimes," Riz admits, voice soft. She supposes that she should feel some sort of guilt for this, but she's been doing it for years. It's another unhealthy coping mechanism lined against the shelf of bad habits. She's a magical girl, it's not as though it'll kill her. "I don't really remember it afterward, though," the way Melissa stares at her - like she just told her that she's considering joining the English, that it's been a nice run, but she has somewhere else to be - makes her reconsider that assessment. "Is that a bad thing?"

"Well," Melissa props her elbows on her knees and her chin on her elbows, in thought, "I'm pretty sure. If something is so bad that you can't remember it," Melissa doesn't mention Tart's death and subsequent revival yesterday and she's quite glad for that, "it's probably bad."

It's different depending on different levels of stress.

If it's something minor like misplacing her one kunai, it'll be a few hairs on her leg, nothing major.

If it's something more drastic, her hand involuntarily travels to the mostly bald patch, the one right above her ear that's typically hidden by her curtain of midnight hair, and she starts picking at the immature, wavy stumps of strands.

The worst - Tart's death, oh god - appeared to result in extreme dissociation while pulling out all of her eyebrow hairs, individually.

At least, Riz tries to think of it as something that simple.

"Give me your hands," Melissa says, turning her body to face Riz. Warily, after a moment of hesitation, Riz places her hands in Melissa's grasp.

"What do we do now?" Riz asks, after not moving her hands for a minute.

"We watch the sun rise, grateful of what," Riz can almost hear the word 'who' somewhere in there, "we have."

Riz mirrors Melissa's action and turns herself to watch the various hues of delicate oranges and gentle pinks spill out across the sky like rouge paint strokes.

**Author's Note:**

> I headcanon Riz to have trichotillomania, which is related to OCD. If you want to learn more about trich, go to this website, [here!](https://nomorehairpulling.com/trichotillomania/) Note: I'm not promoting trich. As someone who has it (non-severely), I just wanted to project a little bit onto Riz.


End file.
